Demon Copperhead

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Synopsis

Demon Copperhead is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. It’s the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.

Synopsis source: The StoryGraph

Review

Genre(s): Fiction, Coming of Age
HB&W Rating: 5 stars
View on StoryGraph, Goodreads
Buy on Barnes & Noble, Amazon

I went into Demon Copperhead completely unaware that it was a retelling of David Copperfield. I don’t imagine it’s an easy feat to re-tell a classic and to earn a Pulitzer for it just speaks to Barbara Kingsolver’s talent.

One of the things I admire most about Kingsolver’s writing is that she creates literary fiction that feels accessible without sacrificing depth. Her prose is thoughtful and layered, but never feels like it requires a literature degree to appreciate. This is only my second Kingsolver novel, which makes me feel very late to the game, but I’m fully here for the duration now.

This is undeniably a long book, yet when I reached the end I still felt bereft, wishing for just a little more time with these characters so I could know everyone would be okay. That emotional attachment speaks to how vividly realized they all are—especially Demon himself. Damon Fields is such a fantastically layered protagonist: intelligent and street-smart, yet still so perfectly human in the choices he makes. He’s sarcastic and sweet in equal measure, grounded in harsh reality while still holding onto his dreams for a better life. He felt completely real to me.

Even the secondary characters, some of whom only appear briefly in Demon’s life, felt unforgettable. Kingsolver gives so much humanity and specificity to every person who crosses his path that it feels less like reading about characters and more like remembering people you’ve known.

The novel’s length ultimately feels necessary because this is truly the story of a life, with all its highs, lows, detours, and in-between moments. It contains everything: the family you’re born into and the family you build for yourself, the love and messiness tangled up in those relationships, beauty and pain, humor and hunger. Above all else, though, this book has heart.

I also found the social commentary incredibly compelling. The novel’s examination of the opioid crisis, the foster care system, and the struggles of the rural white working class felt insightful and empathetic, even if certain elements occasionally leaned toward caricature, almost like one of Demon’s own comics emphasizing particular points for effect.

This book shies away from nothing. It is gritty, raw, painful, funny, and deeply human. It’s the kind of novel that leaves a real book hangover behind—the kind where it takes time to fully come back to reality afterward.

Until next time,

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